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White Paper

A Buyer’s Guide to
Strategic Analytics
Five Critical Criteria for
Analytics Success
When evaluating strategic analytics Introduction
platforms, consider the following Analytics drive the key strategic decisions in major corporations today. It’s rare
factors when framing your that a company makes a critical decision about a new product, corporate
evaluation criteria: expansion or strategic investment without crunching numbers and analyzing
• Time-to-Decision. How quickly can a vast amount of data. However, most legacy tools and solutions that help
you get an answer to your critical companies make these critical strategic decisions simply aren’t built to deal
business decision? with the reality of today’s modern business environment.
• Data Range. What kind of data— While the consumerization of corporate IT and the advent of cloud computing
structured, unstructured, or have combined to change how corporate decision-makers use business
geographic—can the application applications, existing strategic analysis tools remain complicated, time-
consume? consuming, and difficult to use. Whereas decision-makers now demand instant
• Direct Accessibility by answers anytime, anywhere, with access to all the required data to make those
Decision-makers. Can those who decisions at their fingertips, most legacy analytical solutions continue to rely
really need to analyze data do so upon highly specialized and expensive statisticians, PhDs, or data scientists
independently? and require long lead times from the identification of a business problem to
the actual delivery of data and analytics.

Because of this, enterprises such as yours are reconsidering their current


analytic platform investment and evaluating alternative approaches that are
better matched to today’s dynamic, fast-paced business environment. But where
should you start? What evaluation criteria should you use to ensure that you
make a sound investment that will deliver tangible business benefits both
now and in the future?

Clearly, you want a solution that enables you to make the most accurate
business decisions in the shortest amount of time. What’s more, you’ll want
to incorporate all types of data—structured, unstructured, or geographic—
no matter where it is located, ensuring that your organization is making
decisions based on the most relevant information possible. And you’ll want
to make sure that you can put the powerful analytical capabilities delivered
by your new platform—e.g., predictive analytics, spatial data, and location
intelligence—directly in the hands of the employees that need this power,
whether they are line-of-business business analysts, also known as data
artisans, or the business decision-makers they support.

Five Critical Criteria for a Modern, Strategic Analytic Platform


There are five (5) key questions you should ask yourself when evaluating
a strategic analytic platform for your organization.

Question #1: Does the analytics platform combine the experience


of consumer cloud services and sophisticated analytics?
Over the past five years, cloud business intelligence (BI) and analytics have been
among the fastest growing areas of interest for organizations. A flexible cloud
deployment and environment can make analytics more easily accessible and
reduce the burden on IT while, at the same time, enhancing the user experience.
Many organizations have been sold on the promise of saving money and
putting analytic capabilities into the hands of more users, more quickly,
but they have not seen the promise realized.

While plenty of BI tools offer cloud-based deployment options, few also


deliver the power of sophisticated analytics. Those solutions that provide
high-end visualization, metric, and dashboard capabilities lack powerful
analytic capabilities. Likewise, those that are strong in analytics simply
replicate the complexity and cost of legacy on-premise software deployed
in the cloud.

2
“If somebody asked me whether When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should look for a
solution that:
they should use Alteryx,
• Combines the value of cloud-based services with the power of sophisticated
my answer to them would be, analytics to make analytics more easily available to the individuals who
need them, when they need them;
yes, you should, and you will
• Facilitates iterative interaction between business analysts and decision-
never look back again.” makers rather than depending on already overburdened IT resources;
• Gives decision-makers rapid access to analytics from any location,
Paul Thomas, Head of Retail Business Strategies including through a public cloud deployment model; and
Division at Experian
• Delivers an engaging and social experience to allow decision-makers
to use and share analytic applications.

Question #2: Can you access all the relevant data in order to make the
best possible strategic business decisions?
As most analysts know all too well, data today is never stored in a single
location and is rarely consistent or uniform in nature. There’s one data
warehouse for point-of-sale data, another for customer relationship data,
and yet another location for the growing amount of new, unstructured
data, such as social media content. Plus, there’s the inevitable data
captured in flat files—word processing and spreadsheets, for example—
on their desktops.

Unfortunately, most solutions fall short when it comes to accessing data.


Some are limited in the size of the data they can access. Others are limited in
the types of data they can import. And many line-of-business decision-makers
must wait for lengthy stretches of time for overworked IT personnel to
integrate and stage these various datasets before they can even begin analysis.
Without the ability to directly access, integrate, and prepare the right data to
create the correct analytical dataset, decisions can be incomplete, inaccurate,
and ill-advised.

When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should ensure that the
solution you select enables you to:

• Access all the types of data sources relevant to the business problem,
from Big Data and cloud data to local data, corporate data warehouses,
and social media streams;
• Include and process data of different types, including unstructured,
semi-structured, structured, and spatial data;
• Integrate, cleanse, and prepare the data for analysis; and
• Use all of these capabilities in an easy-to-use tool that does not require
intervention or assistance from data scientists or IT staff.

Question #3: Can you complete the entire analytical process in a single tool?
Traditional BI, analytical, and statistical tools were built to do a certain task in
a certain way and many vendors have created loosely coupled product suites—
both through independent development and acquisition—to address the full
complement of capabilities required by the modern business analyst. Ask any
analyst, however, and you’ll find that the analytical process to use these
product suites has not been fully integrated or thought-out.

Instead, analysts must jump from tool to tool to get from business question to
business answer: there’s one tool for ETL and data integration, another tool for
conducting analysis, and yet another tool to use for reporting. And none of
them feed data to one another. What’s more, most analysts face the fact that
their IT organization must be involved in most of these tasks, which can cause
delays in both analysis and actual decisions.

3
Humanizing Big Data is dependent When evaluating modern strategic analytic platforms, you should find a
on two critical elements: solution that drives the entire analytical process in a single tool, so you can:
• Making Big Data Easy to Access. • Unify strategic analytic workflows—from data integration to analytics to
The ability to access, integrate, sharing of analytic applications—dramatically reducing the time not only
and analyze Big Data should be to create analytics but also to iterate or improve them; and
available to data and business • Reach a specific answer or build a business-user ready analytic application
analysts who drive strategic fast enough to meet the needs of the organization.
decision-making across the
organization. Question #4: Does the analytic platform allow you to access and
• Helping Big Data Tell its Story. make sense of Big Data?
Big Data can drive business What is Big Data? Big Data can be defined as data that is created and stored by
value only if it is enriched by the organizations in very large volumes. It is generated at a very high velocity and
full context of all data available comes from a variety of sources. This data can be structured, such as financial
and if advanced analytical data; unstructured, such as text or audio files; or semi-structured, such as a
capabilities can be applied web page. All of these different data types can be difficult to analyze using
without the need for data traditional methods but they unlock the missing “v” in the Big Data discussion:
science or statistical expertise. the value of the data.

Getting the most out of the valuable information stored in your Big Data is key
to making the most informed decisions possible about customer behavior,
process optimization, and even security or compliance. Getting this value
quickly can make or break your organization’s competitive advantage. However,
most organizations with Big Data projects still have entirely separate storage,
access and analysis approaches that keep Big Data “off-limits” to the majority
of decision-makers.

When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should look for a


solution that:

• Makes all types of data available without the long waiting period common
in today’s Big Data access and integration projects;
• Enables you to access all popular Big Data data sources, including Hadoop
and NoSQL systems, and easily integrate that data with other sources
of insight; and
• Allows you to access all Big Data sources without retraining existing
specialists or hiring new analysts, in addition to the existing data scientists
employed to drive deployment of the Big Data systems.

Question #5: Are the right type of analytics available for you to
make the right decisions?

The emergence of data discovery tools has interrupted the steady, sleepy
growth of the traditional BI sector, becoming a disruptive yet positive force in
executive suites around the world. However, while these tools are visually
powerful and enable business leaders to view a snapshot of the current state of
the business, they lack the sophisticated analysis capabilities to provide a more
in-depth view into their data’s past, present, and future. Plus, getting those
details requires an expensive investment in hard-to-find statistical specialists
and programmers.

To make the most informed decisions, you need to be able to run the right
analysis. You can’t rely on your gut feelings or instincts, nor can you rely on
error-prone spreadsheets. Rather, you need a tool that is flexible enough
to give your organization the edge you need to make the most accurate
decisions possible based on the right results. You need a tool that can take
any sort of data—whether structured, unstructured, or even spatial—
and analyze it quickly, giving you the options you need to make the right
competitive decisions and drive your long-term success.

4
When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should look for a
solution that:

• Enables a wide range of decision-makers within your enterprise to use


statistical, predictive, spatial, and other advanced analytics, without requiring
the skills of expensive specialists or data scientists; and
• Allows you to quickly and easily embed these analytics into analytic
applications, delivering their power to users while hiding their complexity.

Alteryx Meets All Five Critical Criteria for a Modern,


Strategic Analytic Solution
Alteryx Strategic Analytics is the only solution that meets all five (5) critical
criteria for a modern strategic analytic solution. As such, it:

1. Combines the experience of consumer cloud services and


sophisticated analytics

Alteryx is the only analytic solution that combines the power of cloud
computing with the consumerization of sophisticated analytics. While most
solutions focus on reducing the burden of IT and infrastructure, they fail to
leverage the cloud to benefit the analytics consumer and make analytics
available to anyone, anywhere, in an intuitive, engaging environment.
Alteryx does this by empowering users to:

• Consume analytic applications through a highly social experience that


is intuitive and engaging
• Share analytic applications with colleagues using email and social media,
including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+
• Publish new and updated analytic applications securely without lengthy
delays or limits on usage

2. Lets you access all the relevant data in order to make the best strategic
business decisions possible

Alteryx Strategic Analytics uniquely delivers the ability to incorporate and


integrate new sources of data and analytics alongside existing standard
sources all from within a single user interface—ensuring the most complete
context for strategic decision-making. With the ability to access data regardless
of size and type—and even enhance it with packaged data from Dun &
Bradstreet, Experian, and the US Census, and spatial data from TomTom and
others—business leaders can make the most informed decisions.

Alteryx is the only solution that delivers on all 5 critical criteria for analytic success

Alteryx Analytics BI Cloud BI


Platforms Platforms Platforms
Cloud
Interface
Access to
All Data
Single Analytic
Solution
Make Sense
of Big Data
Sophisticated
Analytics

5
3. Delivers all phases of the analytical process in a single tool

Alteryx eliminates the need to jump from tool to tool or to rely on others within
your organization, such as IT, to deliver the information you need for analysis
or decision-making. Alteryx brings together the ability to access, integrate,
cleanse, and analyze data in a single platform and workflow, making it easy
to incorporate all aspects of analysis, regardless of skillset. You can then
package this data into a powerful analytical application for use by critical
About Alteryx decision-makers, fostering analytic creativity in a single solution and giving
Alteryx provides indispensable analytic business leaders and decision-makers the answers they need, when they
solutions for enterprise companies need them.
making critical decisions about how
to expand and grow. Our product, 4. Enables you to make sense of Big Data
Alteryx Strategic Analytics, is a
Alteryx closes the gap between the Big Data you have and the value you need,
desktop-to-cloud Agile BI and analytics
humanizing your investment in Big Data. With a single platform to access all
solution designed for Data Artisans and
sources of Big Data—such as Hadoop and MongoDB—and integrate them with
business leaders that brings together
any other data source, Alteryx enables you to find true value in your Big Data.
the market knowledge, location insight,
Plus, because Alteryx makes it easy to consume, share, and publish analytical
and business intelligence today’s
applications in the cloud, you can put your powerful analytics applications in
organizations require. For more than
the hands of decision-makers with just a few clicks.
a decade, Alteryx has enabled strategic
planning executives to identify and 5. Makes the right type of analytics available so you can make
seize market opportunities, outsmart the right decisions
their competitors, and drive more
revenue. Customers like Experian Alteryx enables everyone in your organization to access the powerful, statistical
Marketing Services and McDonald’s rely analytics usually reserved for data specialists. By embedding the most widely
on Alteryx daily for their most important used statistical language, R, directly into the platform, Alteryx makes it easy for
decisions. Headquartered in Irvine, anyone to write sophisticated analytical workflows and predictive analytics
California, and with offices in Boulder applications using pre-built tools, without requiring complex scripting or
and Silicon Valley, Alteryx empowers coding. Alteryx takes the same approach to previously complicated spatial
250+ customers and 200,000+ users analytics: by making powerful spatial capabilities simple and easy to use,
worldwide. Get inspired today at everyone throughout your organization can realize the value of location
www.alteryx.com or call 1-888-836-4274. intelligence and use it to make better, more informed business decisions.

Conclusion
The ability to make the fastest, most informed strategic decisions drives
corporate performance. While most organizations have access to a wide range
of analytic tools, these existing solutions do not meet today’s data access, data
integration, and accessible analytics requirements.

Alteryx Strategic Analytics delivers a single, integrated solution for each of your
analytical requirements, from data access and integration to analysis and
reporting, while enabling you to reach the fastest possible time-to-decision in a
secure private or public cloud environment. With Alteryx, you can give business
analysts and decision-makers instant access to all the information they need,
when they need it, in order to drive business value—and enhance your
company’s competitive advantage.

230 Commerce, Ste. 250, Irvine, CA 92602


+1 714 516 2400
www.alteryx.com © 2012 Alteryx, Inc. Alteryx is a registered trademark of Alteryx, Inc. 10/12

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